X aka Twitter is broken

 

I don’t know where to begin, because there is so much, I have to say. I have been on Twitter since June 2009, because John Kremer, the author of 1001 ways to market your book, encouraged me to join Twitter. I was one of the early users, and just like many people, I had no idea what I was doing when I first started. But I learned quickly how to use the platform, mostly for activism. However, I also posted other things about books, quotes, movies, music, art, and etc. My posts were genuine. I wasn’t using the platform to sell things, but because people liked what I posted, they started to take interest in my writing.

Many people don’t understand why Twitter is so important to some users. Some users are addicted. Others use it to promote their book, music or film. Advertisers use it to promote restaurants, and etc. Then there are those who use it to chat with their friends. Journalists and writers are there to convey articles about current events. But activists, like myself, are there to save lives and expose corruption. No, I don’t think I’m that important for people to want to listen to me. But as a collective, activists can make a whole lot of noise by pushing the media to pay attention and governments to back off. So, for example, if another activist or a prisoner is in trouble, and is being beaten to death, we make noise, jump up and down, wave our hands, sign petitions, and do everything possible to save a life. Sometimes we fail, but for those times when we succeed, and force a government to back down on torture, and death sentence, we are ecstatic to have made a difference.

Twitter had always censored. For example, more than halfway during the Iranian protests, the U.S government asked Twitter to push down the trending hashtag of #IranElection and make it seem unimportant. Tweets about Iran started to lose their reach, soon everything died down, and journalists, encouraged by governments around the world, lost interest. This is how you kill a revolution and push people back into oppression. Governments make behind the scene deals with the oppressed government or sometimes it is not advantages for world governments to have a regime change in an oppressed country.

Even so, Twitter has always been an important platform to make some noise and get a message across. Problem is, Today, X/Twitter is completely broken and useless if you want to find the truth. A few years before Elon Musk took over, Twitter was suffering from too much censorship. But I have never ever seen Twitter to be this horrible since Elon Musk took over. At first, I was excited that he was in charge because he said that he plans not to censor people. What I didn’t realize was that, he was planning to remove the censorship only from people he chose.

Twitter Blue. I have no problem paying for a good product, but I will not pay for trash. Twitter Blue gives you a verified check mark. Honestly, I couldn’t care less. Twitter Blue has cool features. Again, I couldn’t care less. Twitter Blue gives you only 50% of the ads. Well, how about no ads? I’m paying right? I should be entitled to no ads. And on and on and on about things I don’t care about. Oh, and Twitter Blue guarantees that your tweet will have more reach because you are paying. Wow!!! So, if you tweet garbage, your tweet will have more reach because you paid? What about content? Isn’t content more important, and an indicator of why your tweet should have more reach?

Here is what I care about: I only want to see the people that I follow on my home page. I don’t want to see Trump and his cronies on my home page. I don’t want to see tweets that load my page with lies. Some conspiracy theories do have merit if they have links from trustworthy sources that back up the information. Unfortunately, this is not the case today. There is a lot of junk on Twitter. I want to make sure that when I tweet, my tweeps will see it. I used to communicate with a lot of my friends and followers. We used to share information. We used to chat and support each other. All of that is gone.

I kept thinking, Elon Musk and his staff will rise above all of this. I kept thinking that Musk needs time to turn things around for the better. But I’m not so sure anymore. He wants to add a paywall and force people to pay. Again, no problem, if he provided a great product. If things continue this way, I will be leaving Twitter as did many of my online friends. I will not erase my account because I don’t want some awful person to use my name to tweet nonsense. It’s really hard for me to leave Twitter, but it’s even harder for me to waste my time on this platform. I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I’m starting to look into other platforms, and will keep you posted.

And for those of you who think that activists are full of themselves, think again. If it weren’t for activists, the world would be much worse off, and your rights would be taken away. You think the turning of Roe vs. Wade is horrible? Well, I have news for you. That issue will pale compared to everything else that will come your way, if there were no activists working to protect your rights. I’m just a writer activist, but think about all those activists with boots on the ground. Think about them risking their lives everyday so that we can live a more comfortable life. We need them. Without them, this world would dissipate into nothingness.